By Elena Temple and Ed Somers
March 23, 2009

A delegation of staff appointed to oversee implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in cities across the country attended a day-long meeting at the White House on March 18 with Vice President Joe Biden, ARRA Accountability Board Chair Earl Devaney and federal agency representatives.

Over fifty ARRA Czars, as they have been called, came to town to learn as much as they could about the process for accessing stimulus dollars for local projects.

The delegation, which also included representatives from the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties, met in the Old Executive Office Building to hear presentations from Vice President Biden and the following agencies: Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation, Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Office of Management and Budget.

During his remarks, Vice President Biden reminded the czars to be prudent in local decisions on stimulus spending saying, “Just because projects may be ‘legal’ doesn’t mean they are ‘appropriate.’”

The local representatives also had the opportunity to ask questions throughout the day. Question topics ranged from highway funding and water projects to public safety and education to homelessness. Several questions focused specifically on when guidance from federal agencies would be issued, deadlines for reporting, what particular sources of funding are available for localities, making sure that states don’t impede certain projects or direct money to wealthy or rural communities over metropolitan areas. White House officials responded by saying the questions provided, ‘good feedback’ and ‘were very helpful for them.’

White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz addressed the group briefly and encouraged them saying, “This is the start of a conversation. This is not the only time we expect to see you.”

Following the meeting with White House personnel, some members of the delegation held a press conference at the West Wing Stakeout. Local officials stressed to reporters that they welcome being held accountable for the ARRA dollars spent in cities and counties, but that they want to be sure they are given the information and tools they need to be successful.

Prior to the all-day meeting in the White House, USCM CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran hosted a working dinner for the city ARRA czars to discuss key implementation issues and identify questions for the White House meeting.

In addition to specific questions regarding the multitude of federal programs, overarching questions were raised concerning issue such as Davis-Bacon wage requirements, “Buy American” provisions in ARRA, anti'supplanting rules, tracking and reporting requirements, and how job creation will be calculated.

There was serious concern expressed that the Davis-Bacon requirements could conflict with minority contractor and small business outreach efforts in cities. In addition, city coordinators want to know if there will be uniform reporting requirements through the new recovery.org federal website, or if reporting will continue to be done through each federal agency.

While all of these questions were raised in the White House meeting, most remain unresolved.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Controller Danny Werfel said that they hoped to issue guidance in early April. Some of the guidance will be final, and some will be interim final and effective but open to comment. Werfel said that OMB is focused on three key areas: data collection; Davis-Bacon; and Buy American.

He agreed that agencies need guidance on standard definitions of issues such as what is a “project” and what does it mean to achieve “completion.”

When pressed on the question of how job creation will be calculated for differing projects under very different federal programs, Werfel said that there would like be multiple formulas used to calculate job savings in creation to account for differences in programs.